Just think, if your first lesson had been to hold each other and move your bodies forward (male) and backwards accross the dance floor. The second lesson would be to do that stepping with music. If we learned how to move together and then how to make that easier with ways to improve the connection etc this topic would not exist!

I totally agree! Why I'm learning this after this many years of dancing boggles the mind.

Dora, you are a blessing to the dance world. I think that people are finally getting it. It's such a simple idea and maybe that's why the whole concept is overlooked. There seems to be an inclination to make things difficult when, in reality, it is all so simple.

Wow thank you, Sarosh. I do my best to help wherever I can. I do hope that at some people will learn how simple it really is. I do think that is the biggest challenge to understand the simplicity

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Maybe that is the challenge of living on this plane of existence. Maybe we are here to realize how simple life(dancing) really is..........

As I see it, the main reason its so complicated is because we both expect, and are tought about steps and feet as the primary focus of dance when we should be tought body motion.

Just think, if your first lesson had been to hold each other and move your bodies forward (male) and backwards accross the dance floor. The second lesson would be to do that stepping with music. If we learned how to move together and then how to make that easier with ways to improve the connection etc this topic would not exist!

I spend the first month "walking" without a partner when I first learned to dance. Then after that first month then we would "walk" with a partner. It was always kept very easy and simple. This was way back when I first learned to dance. My main teacher in England had me doing similar things but more as drills. It is just a different way of learning. It has been a great method to create great dancers, but only very few know of this way of teaching. Hopefully with time more and more people will learn it this way.

As I see it, the main reason its so complicated is because we both expect, and are tought about steps and feet as the primary focus of dance when we should be tought body motion.

Just think, if your first lesson had been to hold each other and move your bodies forward (male) and backwards accross the dance floor. The second lesson would be to do that stepping with music. If we learned how to move together and then how to make that easier with ways to improve the connection etc this topic would not exist!

I spend the first month "walking" without a partner when I first learned to dance. Then after that first month then we would "walk" with a partner. It was always kept very easy and simple. This was way back when I first learned to dance. My main teacher in England had me doing similar things but more as drills. It is just a different way of learning. It has been a great method to create great dancers, but only very few know of this way of teaching. Hopefully with time more and more people will learn it this way.

DSV

then please get the new topic going in the General Partnerdancing area

Just think, if your first lesson had been to hold each other and move your bodies forward (male) and backwards accross the dance floor. The second lesson would be to do that stepping with music. If we learned how to move together and then how to make that easier with ways to improve the connection etc this topic would not exist!

Dora, you are a blessing to the dance world. I think that people are finally getting it. It's such a simple idea and maybe that's why the whole concept is overlooked. There seems to be an inclination to make things difficult when, in reality, it is all so simple. Maybe that is the challenge of living on this plane of existence. Maybe we are here to realize how simple life(dancing) really is..........

all the best, S

what a gem of a post (and fabulous thread overall... have so enjoyed it, thanks to everyone's dynamic and heartfelt participation)

and dora, you are indeed a blessing to the dance world. thank you so much for your generosity on PDO.

I actually have fun finding answers to the questions that come up here on PDO. I am lucky that I have people around me that have a vast amount of knowledge. If I don’t know the answer, then I will ask one of them. They are all very willing to help me and share with me what they know. I am then able to pass this information onto you here on PDO. I actually asked one of the people I asked for information what I owed her for the information and she laughed and told me to just share it with the world and that she would be compensated fairly for what she gave me from different sources.

what comes first, how to do the step or how to lead a step? if I learn to lead first,what am I leading? leading, I think, takes a great deal of time to do properly and improves with practice and acquired insight. can someone help because my post is confusing me!

I am still in awe that some consider learning to dance easy. Please help me understand. When I think of what I am trying to do with competitive ballroom and latin and how long I have trained just to get to pre championship status (a very modest level) it is hurtful to see it as not difficult! I see dancing as easy to learn in the sense that a child sees learning to walk easy. If that child had to run a marathon then that wouldnt be easy at all. Mastering any discipline is a life long ambition. I would bet my net worth that every champion in every sport only makes that event "look" easy.

No I am not saying there must be another way (if the above post is addressed to me)

Oh sorry. You asked to help you understand. Here's my 2-cents: dancing, the kind you see the top professionals do, I've learned, is an illusion. They make it look easy only because it really is easy. It's the viewer who makes it look complicated. Very similar to magic. What the magician is actually doing is a lot less complicated, less stressful and less physical than actually sawing his assistant in half and then putting her back together again. However, there's money, status, and a lot of other factors involved. So it behooves them to make it seem as complicated as possible so that only those that they choose may enter the top ranks. A few generations of this and you have teachers who sincerely believe it's very complicated. It has gotten to the point where in the U.S. it's more the norm than the exception to find a teacher who believes in the complexity.

One thing you'll note here about PDO is that the top pros on here got their information first hand from the original gurus, and they are so magnanimous with this information that they are still pushing the simplicity of the art. They are not trying to make themselves feel more superior by telling everyone that what they're doing is a hybrid between rocket science and brain surgery (rocket surgery!). To me, that's one of the biggest draws of PDO. People aren't here to in insinuate or assert their superiority. They're here to tell as many people as they can how easy it all is, and they're here to help people see past the illusion. I got found myself on this board when I told myself, "there has to be a better way". There has to be a reason 6-yr olds who have been on this earth for a shorter amount of time than I've been dancing could beat me at any given day at any competition with one leg tied behind their back. I had to know what the secret was. If a 6-yr old can make it look easy, then maybe it was I who was making it complicated.